colleen

HEADPHONES OR AMP FOR THIS PLEASE: this does not sound right on a laptop, it sounds a little better on a mobile phone, but the only right way to listen to this is through headphones or an amp.

As a lifelong Lee Perry fan, I dreamt for years of owning a Space Echo, but always found reasons to not take the plunge. Then in 2018 my path crossed the path of Soundgas: I was looking for the ultra rare Elka Drummer One drum machine from 1969, they were the only outlet worldwide to have one regularly on sale, refurbished, and so this is how Gid, Tony and I started writing to each other, with me begging them to give me a heads up if the rare beast turned up. It did and I bought it, which opened the door of vintage gear in my life. I am a *very* cautious buyer in general – for everything – and I am also adverse to accumulating objects. I also do not like the thought of something sitting unused or even underused. I was sure I would love a real Space Echo after using plugin and pedal emulations for so many years, but I did want to be sure I was buying one from a trustworthy source, and I am still so happy I got mine from Soundgas. They are not paying me to write these lines, the machine speaks for itself.

It really does send sound into space, and there’s nothing like switching on the real thing and hearing the tape hiss and that warm drive. I hope you enjoy this video of “Be without being seen”, the suite from Le jour et la nuit du réel that marks the end of the day side, the first one to use the Space Echo in the album (“Les parenthèses enchantées – Mvt I – II – III – IV” also use it).

Dear everyone

I hope this message finds you all as well as possible.

Today is another Bandcamp Friday day and I am relaunching my animal shelter and rescue appeal with renewed conviction. As stated in my last message, two new things this month:

• I am including not just “Conditional” in the appeal, but also the A Flame Variations: Live in the Moog Soundlab EP, recorded in Asheville, NC, back in november 2017. Moog gave me the honor of inviting me to their famous studio located next to their factory to mark the end of production of the Moogerfoogers, which led me to reinterpreting some of the songs from my 6th album A Flame my Love, a Frequency through a daisychain of MF-101 Lowpass Filter, MF-102 Ring Modulator, MF-103 12-Stage Phaser and MF-104M Analog Delay, with the last song also using the CP251 Control Processor.

Moog were very generous to me throughout those years, and now that an uncertain chapter opens for the company , I feel super grateful for what they gave me (literally and, on a deeper level, musically) and it feels just right to somehow give back for a bigger cause. 

• From now on, I will tell you which organization your funds will go to for this particular Bandcamp Friday (and month – the appeal is always ongoing), as opposed to me choosing the organization the following month, which is what I did previously.

This month, I have chosen to highlight one of the animal causes that most breaks my heart, the tragic situation of Spanish greyhounds (galgos), who are used in Spain as hunting dogs and – because of a scandalous loophole in Spanish law, which even more scandalously was not rectified in the recent animal welfare reform – are not protected by  animal laws as they are literally considered to be “tools”. 

As always, I consider that choosing to look at hard images and read harsh accounts is a very personal choice, so in order to respect every person’s sensitivity, I will just sum up the situation by saying that *each year*, 50,000 galgos are abandoned when they are considered no longer useful for hunting, their fate being in the best case scenario roaming the countryside while starving, and in the worst case scenario a slow death from starvation, disease and wounds often voluntarily inflicted by their “owners”, with frequent cases of violent death.

The Fundación Benjamín Mehnert (Instagram and website here), based in Sevilla, is doing an incredible job rescuing galgos, a complicated endeavour involving capturing the dogs, giving them intensive vet care in many cases, rehabilitating them, then transferring them to foster homes and definitive homes, sometimes across the country, so that these animals can start a totally new life. I hope that like me, you will feel like helping them.

Deep thanks and hugs from Cécile, Sol and Klee.

Yesterday, while desperately trying to make a decision about which camera to buy before Cybermonday finished, I almost had an out of body experience as I endlessly scrolled through the various camera models, making a list of their pros and cons, triplechecking their specs against my needs for my seemingly simple project: filming my synth from above to have that projected live on a screen in the venue (the big screen live equivalent of what I do with my phone for my tutorial videos)
Can’t be that difficult, right? Well, IT IS, and I find that bonkers. 
Potential camera pitfalls range from short battery life (shorter than my set length, for sure) to complete absence of HDMI port or adaptor possibility, from even shorter battery life in heated conditions (and stages do get crazy hot) to poor image quality in low light…
Because we are talking of venues (large, often underground) and not a home setting, you have to factor in latency problems due to instability of Wifi, degradation of signal strength along long cables, possible unreliability of Bluetooth… 
For every solution, a list of caveats, and an extra accessory to buy…
Logistically, a bulky camera filming overhead requires a solid support system, just not available in venues. Also, my aim was to be self-sufficient: small camera with no one needed to operate it, no laptop and/or routers (I am already at maximum capacity gearwise).
Last but not least, my idea was that people could see the *detail* of what I am doing, but it turns out most cameras shooting in 4K can’t be projected in 4K, so that on a huge screen, the result is pretty disappointing.
Throughout the afternoon I found myself frequently mumbling “F..k this” in Spanish, then in the evening, I finally found relief by deciding to completely give up on the idea. Problem solved. No stress. No extra expense. Is it a shame? Yes, kind of. But I get to focus on the music again, and I know you come for the music anyway 😀 END OF RANT🤪

🙏🙏🙏📷 @fiveservice @mherlow @aslaugmusic

LE GUESS WHO Part II, JANSKERK, UTRECHT 11th November 2023: SPACE ECHO AND THE “RHODES SOUND”.  
I adore playing Le jour et la nuit du réel live, and I love the transition from the Day side to the Night side as I play the last Day suite, “Be without being seen”: instead of sending the Moog Grandmother into the MF-104M Delay via Aux Send, I switch to the Roland RE-201 Space Echo in my studio (my Soundgas Echo from 2019 is still going strong!) and, for the live show, a BOSS RE-20 pedal: it does not have the magic of the real unit (no real tape noise and no input drive), but it does do a great job of giving me the exact same echo as on the record without me having to look for equivalent settings.
The shift in mood is immediately palpable: the MF-104M is to me an “earth energy” device, whereas the Space Echo couldn’t be more aptly named, it really does send sound into another dimension.
For the next show, at home in Barcelona on 14th December at L’Auditori (tickets here), I am already smiling at the thought of having the real thing with me on stage, filmed from above – echo tape travelling is my favourite gear sight in the world!
When the Night side begins with “Les parenthèses enchantées – Movement I”, I always really feel the shift in energy. I love how sparse and spacious that whole suite is, and how simple the settings are for it after the denser sounds and complex patching of the previous half. I even called this the “Rhodes sound” on my worksheets throughout the making of the album, and it was my original sonic building block and starting point for a lot of the compositions.

Next stops, with more dates to be announced next year:
14 12 L’Auditori / L’Afluent – BARCELONA, ES @auditoribcn @lafluent
16 12 Galeria Ze Dos Bois – LISBOA, PT @galeriazedosbois
2024
29 02 Elevate – GRAZ, AT @elevate_festival
19-23 03 Tremor – SAÕ MIGUEL, AZORES, PT @tremorpdl
21-24 03 Big Ears – KNOXVILLE, TN, USA @bigearsfestival
🙏🙏🙏 @leguesswho and 📷 @porfidou @stretchead @jobdewit @negativland00

I had high expectations for @le_guess_who as I had heard so much about the festival, both from musicians who had played there and people who had attended as audience members, and to say I was not disappointed is an understatement – so much so that I have decided to post several reels from the footage I was sent.
I got my first standing ovation (I *think* it is my first, and it must be, because I think I would remember if I had had one before), and after nearly 250 shows (show #250 will be next year!), it was really heart-warming, especially since I really didn’t expect it in a festival setting and it totally took me by surprise.
I only learnt I was playing at the church of Janskerk a few days before, and was told shortly before starting that mine was to be the last ever Le Guess Who performance in that space! And as with @ekkobergen the week before, I got amazingly beautiful lighting – what a privilege!
I loved the church’s acoustics once I got used to the slapback echo I received in the choir (at first I thought something was wrong with the Grandmother!) and even with these mobile phone recordings, with headphones you can get a sense of the extra space it produced.

LE GUESS WHO Part I, JANSKERK, UTRECHT 11th November 2023 + A FEW WORDS ON UNQUANTIZED SEQUENCING WITH @squarpinstruments HAPAX ON “TO HOLD AND TO BE HELD”.

“To hold and to be held” is a favorite of mine to play live: I just launch the composition’s long unquantized sequences with the @squarpinstruments Hapax sequencer I bought specially for the live shows, with some sections repeated in order to give me time to “arrive” to the right settings. The reason I smile so much when I play this and it goes well is not just that the music puts me in a great mood: it is *really* hard to get the settings just right on the Grandmother (we’re talking a millimitre on the LFO Rate knob making a real difference) *and* on the MF-104M Delay to produce the right lilt and groove. Mvt II involves 3 patches coming in succession, #3 being my fav as I feel the music is playing table tennis with itself!
Le jour et la nuit du réel out @thrilljockey
🙏🙏🙏 @le_guess_who, the audience and for 📷 @tristtristanstan @aslaugmusic